Functionalized Carbon Nanostructures for Wastewater Treatments

Pure water is of utmost importance for the human beings. Conversion of wastewater to drinking water become an effective strategy to produce fresh water. Advancements in the field of nanoscience have paved the way to utilize nanostructured materials for the purification of wastewater. Among the various nanomaterials used for the water purification, carbon nanomaterials have attracted great scientific interest in the recent past. The various carbon nanostructures used for the wastewater treatment are graphene, carbon nanotubes, graphene oxide, reduced graphene oxide, etc. These nanostructures exhibit fascinating physicochemical properties such as large surface area to volume ratio, porous architecture, good adsorption/desorption capability, good chemical and electrochemical stabilities, good corrosion resistance, to name a few. The scarcity of pure water and its increasing demand made wastewater treatment technologies flourish in the recent past. There are different types of wastewater treatment technologies that were developed in the recent past such as photocatalysis, adsorption, desalination, etc. This chapter deals with the application of carbon nanostructures for the wastewater treatment by adopting various synthetic strategies.